Your Child’s Health – Who’s Responsible?

Can you be summoned to court in the future for bad eating habits formed in childhood?
Scenario: Two or three decades from now, scores of adults with health problems like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity will be suffering serious self esteem issues and spending tons of money on medicine and treatment. This will have been caused by what they were fed in their daily activities during their childhood.
In their frustration, they form support groups with other adults who share the same health problems and humiliation due to being obese. Eventually they look for something to blame and finally decide and point their accusing fingers at the ones that played a major role in their developing years- their parents. They might even take Mom and Dad to court and win; as the judge will likely be one their own- himself a victim of bad diet and lack of exercise during childhood.
Funny as it sounds, this scenario can really happen. Sadly, some parents these days are being blamed by their offspring for the myriad of problems our society is suffering from. The numbers say it: scores of people a few decades from now will suffer a cacophony of ailments stemming from bad childhood diet and lifestyle habits.
Believe it or not, the diet of a lot of babies and toddlers these days are as actually as bad as those of their chip n dip munching teenage counterparts who dine mainly on fast-food. The American Dietetic Association published a recent study proving this in one of the journals.
The diet of 1/3 of the child respondents surveyed by researchers from the Tufts University School of Medicine had vegetables and fruits absent from their diet. Most of those that did have vegetables present in their diet were under the impression that French fries qualified as a vegetable.
It’s bad enough that a lot of children these days aren’t getting much exercise sitting in front of the boob tube the whole day watching cable TV, but researchers also discovered that some parents were even pouring soda into baby bottles designed for milk. Cola drinks and other types of carbonated drinks are a major cause of obesity in adults.
Not surprising then that a fourth of preschool children suffer from obesity and the numbers are increasing rapidly. Furthermore, preferences in children’s diet are established during 2nd and 3rd years of their lives, so the statistics are certain to get worse. Most cases of heart disease and diabetes are linked of course, to bad diet and unhealthy lifestyles, so children these days or on the road to bad health.
So can parents during these times of fast-food, marathon online games and cable TV do anything about this unhealthy trend? Of course! We all have the capability of influencing our offspring’s lifestyle habits dramatically. Being good role models for our children by adopting healthy eating and exercise habits is a good start.
We’d never know, but down the road, 20-30 years from now, babies that have had the good fortune on having parents that helped them form healthy eating habits and lifestyles will become smart, fit and successful adults. These healthy members of society may even recognize and show some appreciation for the thoughtfulness their parents had in helping them form healthy habits in their childhood. Doesn’t this sound like a way better alternative to a lawsuit?